'Bugattis encapsulate concepts of engineering which, once seen, change your ideas radically and definitively.

Drive them, and you realise that each car is form and engineering in equilibrium, and a work of art.' – William Stobbs, Les Grandes Routières .

By the early 1930s Ettore Bugatti had established an unrivalled reputation for building cars with outstanding performance on road or track; the world's greatest racing drivers enjoying countless successes aboard the Molsheim factory's products and often choosing them for their everyday transport.

Developed from the first Bugatti to be built at Molsheim - the short-wheelbase Type 13 of 1910 - the Type 13 'Brescia' took that name following the factory's first four places at the 1921 Italian Grand Prix for Voiturettes, held at the eponymous racetrack in Lombardy.

Longer wheelbase Type 22 and Type 23 models were made, both of which used the single-overhead-camshaft 16-valve Brescia engine and were built alongside 8-valve 'Petit Pur Sang...